The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts. After passing a century, which it celebrated in 2019, it is now a global movement made up of 29 national member organizations which work in 120 countries.

ROLE PURPOSE:

Save the Children in Ethiopia implements a wide range of both humanitarian and development programs with partners across the country.  We work with UN agencies, donors, Government of Ethiopia, International and local organizations, research centres, academic institutions, private companies, networks and media agencies. Our partners are of diverse type, capacity, technical expertise and geographic focus. Partnership development and management takes place across different departments at program development and quality, implementation and close out. Localisation is one of the vehicles to achieve Country Strategic Plan and shifting power to communities, children and local and national actors is one of the enabling factor to achieve Save the Children ambition.

The Senior Partnerships and Localization Manager will play a critical role in turning the localisation roadmap in to action, and responsible for all aspects of partnership management cycle across the country office. The incumbent is responsible for overseeing partners’ selection and partnership development, capacity assessment and capacity sharing of partners, conduct joint monitoring.  H/she is responsible for the development and roll out of partnership specific standards, compliance and guidelines to relevant stakeholders. In general, the position holder plays coordination and facilitation roles across thematic, finance, programs, awards, Child Safeguarding and other key functions to ensure implementation of Save the Children’s internal policies and standards on partnership management.

H/she will be an experienced and entrepreneurial generalist with in depth understanding of localisation and partnership management with a proven track record. H/She will engage with Country Offices team to identify critical operational issues that hinder or accelerate localisation. S/he be able to work closely in line with the roadmap and pathway to the Localisation Ambition and working groups as well as the advisory councils where the outcomes and feedback influence processes, policy, system , investments and process at country office and beyond.  The Sr. Manager will sit within the Award and Partnership team at Save the Children International, and will also engage in field level leadership meeting.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to:  Head of Partnerships and Localization

Staff directly reporting to this post:  none

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Responsible for Partnership Management, Development and Learning

• Ensuring standards for partnership establishment, development, management and close out are complied with.
• Develop partner engagement plan together (including joint project design where possible) and consultation with partners and SC staff.
• Maintain and archive Partner Database
• Facilitate regular dialogue, review meetings and information sharing with partners including government, non-government, research, academics and other types of partners
• Facilitate partner involvement in SC proposals and budget preparation and input directly to ensure partner design and costs are appropriately represented and adequately resourced.
• Monitor partners’ performance in accordance with Save the Children policies and procedures
• Ensure best practices from partners or SCI projects are shared to ensure a high quality of implementation.
• Actively participate and contribute towards an exchange of knowledge and learning with partners.
• Ensure that learning and feedback is prioritized throughout all partnerships.
• Organize and facilitate partnership survey to ensure feedbacks come out from partners and properly addressed by save the children.
• Support programs in carrying out Annual Partnership Review Meetings.

Technical support on Operationalizing localisation

• Coordinate with thematic lead on a regular bases to track the progress of the main activities under the seven dimensions of Localization.
• Participate in the national and in – house Localization working group to create awareness on Localization and advocate to advance the agenda.
• Engage thematic lead, operation and other relevant functions to design a project with a Localisation touch and contribute to the Localisation sections of the project proposal.
• Asses, analyze and document the good practices of the Localisation models and draft a quarterly brief
• Identify models that support Localisation and try to adopt with the Localisation roadmap.
• Provide support towards the development of the seven dimension model.
• Support the roll-out, review, webinar and capacity-strengthening of Localisation and partnership.
• Gather and disseminate evidence of operationalizing Localisation approach documenting the effective model and pain points.

Engage in Organization Development and Partners’ capacity building

• Motivate, lead and develop partners’ organization development initiatives
• Conduct partners’ due diligence and capacity assessment; ensuring SCI standards for partnership development are complied with and documented.
• Facilitate and coordinate pre award partnership and capacity assessment and follow up implementation of capacity support plans.
• Keeping up to date and documentation of core partnership processes per each agreements and ensure these are reported to relevant teams
• Design a system to provide technical support for partners based on assessment findings
• Work with external agencies to understand contexts where partners work and support in providing strategic guidance to the organization.
• Identify and recommend possible supports to partners to build their capacity and enhance performance
• Report trends and performances of partners and document lessons drawn from working in partnership

Partnership Selection Assessment and Monitoring

• Coordinate and support ownership of the partnership selection/development systems, processes and procedures.
• checking (and occasionally drafting) partnership agreements, and memorandum of understanding; ensuring SCI formats and standards are adhered to;
• Lead the process to design and implement good processes/criteria for scoping, selection and assessment of potential partners in coordination with other relevant functions.
• Manage all partnership processes and oversee the partner implementation cycle from kick off, reporting, monitoring and evaluation, and close out.
• Ensure monitoring schedule of partners and the tracking as per schedules.
• Conduct regular joint visit to projects and provide/record constructive feedback
• Coordination with other finance units and Budget Holders on partner-related issues
• Review monitoring reports of partners and give feedback.
• Compile key findings of partners monitoring reports on a quarterly basis to be shared with the senior leadership team
• Closely work with award colleagues to track the performance of partners; and summarize and share the results to inform management decisions.

Area offices supported areas of localization and its dimensions

• Work with the three area offices to understand the current localization practices and provide hands-on technical support.
• Engage in the mapping of localization champions such as UN, local and national government and private sectors, Child led initiatives and academia.
• Work closely with the Area Directors (South, North and East) to identify the areas of support which could be related to system strengthening, resourcing or remote guidance.
• Customize the country office localization roadmap to area and field office to complement with the overall global and regional localization ambitions.

Representation and networking

• Represent SC in the various organizations and forums mainly related to partnership, civil society sector and/or charities.
• Network with peers, other agencies, INGOs and relevant government stakeholders

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values

Ambition:

• sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
• future orientated thinks strategically and on a global scale

Collaboration:

• approachable, good listener, easy to talk to; builds and maintains effective relationships with colleagues, members and external partners and supporters
• Values diversity, understands where different people are coming from, able to work cross-culturally.

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• cuts away bureaucracy and encourages an entrepreneurial approach

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency, builds trust and confidence
• displays consistent excellent judgment

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• A minimum of Bachelor’s Degree holder in any relevant field of study in particular project management, social sciences, business administration and six years of relevant experience.
• Practical experience in partnership management, capacity sharing and monitoring of partners.
• A very good understanding of localization, Grand bargain commitment and charter for change.
• Familiarity with the localization agenda, local leadership and prior experience of work with local civil society organisations.
• Experience of working within large and complex international organisations working with a diverse types of partners.
• Understanding of the requirements and challenges of working with civil societies and local partners with substantial experience of partnership and partnership management is a requirement.
• Must have strong coordination skill, partnership building skill, team building and conflict management skill, financial management (budget preparation and monitoring)
• Project and program development and management experience.
• Strong cultural sensitivity, with highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including influencing, negotiation, problem solving and coaching
• Demonstrated ability to develop and manage productive relationships with wide range of stakeholders,.
• Experience of solving complex issues through analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy in using inspiration and sticking to principles.
• Proficiency in English language ( verbally and in writing) .
• Commitment to the vision, mission and values of Save the Children.